SSD Data Recovery

SSD (Solid State Drive) Data Recovery

SSD Data Recovery: A typical SSD is essentially ganged NAND memory IC’s on a larger PCB. The same data recovery techniques used for smaller USB flash drives can be used for some ssd data recoveries; however, many SSD manufacturers use controllers with built in encryption making removal of the individual NAND chips a waste of time. If encryption is not found within the controller and an SSD type drive printed circuit board can not be repaired, each individual NAND memory IC can be removed and read individually to obtain raw data dumps. At this point, reverse engineering is performed to manipulate the data as the original controller did. It is critical that all the memory dumps are preformed in order based on how they are arranged on the SSD printed circuit board. More information about this process can be found here. SSD data recovery pricing is dependent on the total capacity of the SSD and the time involved to complete the recovery. Many modern Apple / Mac Solid State Drives use the common SandForce Controller which uses 265 Bit AES encryption making the entire process very difficult if there is damage to the controller. Many SSD’s suffer from firmware corruption and our lab makes use of Ace Laboratories tools to deal specifically with SSD firmware issues often allowing for the repair of the device without any type of disassembly of the components on the printed circuit board. Many people believe the idea of a solid state device is less prone to failure. Since there are no moving parts, SSD’s are more robust than conventional hard disk drives; however, SSD’s have many of their own unique reasons for failure.